


i imagine death so much (it feels more like a memory)

by Tilion



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Dark Lords, M/M, Reincarnation, angbang, basically fluff for these two tbh, ish, lotr is the distant past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-19 14:51:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tilion/pseuds/Tilion
Summary: "His dreams should have been nightmares — blood and smoke, fire and cruel laughter. But he felt no fear. Only something like longing."***Mairon doesn't believe in reincarnation.Reincarnation, apparently, believes in him.
Relationships: Lúthien Tinúviel/Thuringwethil (background), Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

Smoke.

Ragged breaths.

Blood trickling down his jaw — he wiped it with a gloved hand — sharp pain beneath his ribs, sweat slicking his skin from running and running and running —

Black skies, streaked with red.

Fire.

 _Fire_. 

Licking his heart, his hands, his soul.

A pair of eyes — black and dark and deeper than wells, veiled with layers and layers of masks.

A name perched on the tip of his tongue.

One glimpse, one single glimpse, of something ancient and forever and impossible and terrible. One glimpse of something dark and beautiful and awful, something that stretched throughout the centuries with no heed to time or space. Something like magic and death and blood and sickness —

the —

 _Void_ —

***

Terror ripped Mairon's eyes open.

But nothing stared back, save for the vacant blackness of the ceiling. He tried to sit up, but his limbs were twisted in sweat-soaked sheets. 

Sighing, he carefully disentangled himself. A ginger curl tumbled across his face, and he flicked it aside with one hand. As his vision adjusted to the dark, he blinked to rid the sleep from his eyes.

He'd had the dream again. Or, one of them.

It wasn't a dream, not really. It felt more like a memory, separated from him by years, decades even. Flashes of colors, images, sounds. Scraps of consciousness, half-erased by the careless hands of time. 

Fire, usually. Pain, occasionally. 

A little golden ring, almost always. 

And sometimes there was a man, a man with waves of raven hair and a crooked smile, and the kind of eyes that made you wonder if he was brilliant or insane . . .

Mairon shook his head, and the last of the dream faded. Because that was what dreams did. Fade. And that was all it was. A dream.

He swung his legs around the side of the bed and stood up, stretching. It was early, not yet sunrise, but suddenly light spilled across the room. He blinked, turning. Curumo stood at the door, pale hair disheveled. 

"Mairon?" He yawned, leaning against the doorway. "Why're you up?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"Don't need your sass, Mai."

"That sounds like a you problem."

" _I_ was taking a piss. _You_ look like shit."

Mairon perched delicately on his bed again, arching his brows. "Thanks." 

"You been awake all night or something?" Curumo flopped back onto his bed, opposite Mairon's. 

"No, I just—" He hesitated. "I just had a weird dream."

"Another one of those nightmares? That blows, man." He made a sympathetic face, or tried to. It looked a bit like he was constipated. Instead of telling him so like he normally would, Mairon just shrugged. 

He didn't say what he wanted to say. He didn't say that they weren't . . . nightmares. Not really.

His dreams should have been nightmares — blood and smoke, fire and cruel laughter. But he felt no fear. Only something like longing.

But saying something like that, even to his roommate and closest friend, felt like some sort of intrusion. Which was ridiculous. They were _his_ dreams; he wasn't invading anyone's privacy by divulging them. Still, he was seized by the strange thought that letting the words in his mind cross his lips would — would —

 _Ridiculous_. He was being ridiculous.

"It's, like, one in the morning," Curumo pointed out. "We should go to sleep."

"Says the guy who once pulled an all-nighter chatting with Olórin on Palantír.net," he shot back.

Curumo snorted. "Yeah, touché."

"Anyway, it's only . . ." Mairon swept a hand blindly across his nightstand until his fingers closed around his phone. He checked the screen, squinting against the blinding light. ". . . Midnight."

"Yeah, well, I'm tired."

"Go to sleep, then."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

" _Yeah_."

Curumo rolled over, and soon the room was awash in the sounds of soft snores. 

But Mairon lay awake, unable to keep the cascading images of his dreams from his mind. The fire. The wolves. The ring.

And the man with the black eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> filler and weird humor

" . . . and so many of the old languages were lost to history, especially those without a written component. However, elements of some of these languages, in particular several dialects of Elvish, have made their way into Common, which means that some of the words I'm speaking right now come from . . ."

Mairon's phone buzzed, almost silently. Professor Aulë kept droning on, unaware, and he slipped his phone out into his hand.

**From: Thuringwethil**

I'm bored

**To: Thuringwethil**

That is fascinating and entirely relevant information

**From: Thuringwethil**

Maiiiiii

**To: Thuringwethil**

Thuriiiiiiiiii

**From: Thuringwethil**

Do NOT call me that

**To: Thuringwethil**

Why, does it bother you?

**From: Thuringwethil**

Oh no

**From: Thuringwethil**

Don't you dare change my contact to that

**To: Thuringwethil**

I wasn't going to, but now that i think about it, that's a good idea

**From: Thuri**

Fuck you

**To: Thuri**

Love you too <3

**From: Thuri**

ugh

**From: Thuri**

coffee later? the usual place?

**From: Thuri**

Luthien's coming too

**To: Thuri**

Oh, great

**To: Thuri**

you two are going to be making out the whole time, aren't you

**From: Thuri**

I will neither confirm nor deny

**To: Thuri:**

Ewww

**From: Thuri**

So you'll be there?

**To: Thuri**

ofc

He risked a glance toward the other side of the classroom, where Thuringwethil was slipping her phone into her jacket pocket. She glanced up and stuck her tongue out at him. He stuck his own out in response.

From the seat behind him, Eönwë snorted audibly. Mairon flipped him off behind his back, and heard a faint snicker from Thuringwethil.

It was going to be a good day, he decided.

***

"So tell me about your dreams again."

Mairon arched his reddish eyebrows. "I've already told you."

"Yes, but it's _interesting_."

They were standing in line at their favorite coffee place, waiting for Thuringwethil's girlfriend to arrive. He sighed, twirling a lock of hair around one finger. "I don't know, they're just _weird_. Like, I'm me, but I'm also somebody else at the same time."

She folded her arms. "Pretty sure that's how dreams normally work."

"No," he insisted. "This is different. Like, on some level, I'm me, with my own thoughts and emotions and reaction, and then I'm also somebody else, thinking totally different things."

"That is weird," she conceded.

"I am, believe it or not, aware."

"Okay, smartass." She snorted, stepping up to make their order. "Hi. I'll have a java chip frappuccino. And a pink drink for my girl. And one black coffee for Mr. Edgelord McEdgyface over here."

He arched his brows again. "This coming from the girl who had a _Twilight_ phase for two years straight."

Thuringwethil narrowed her eyes. " _We don't talk about that_ ," she hissed. 

"We don't talk about what?" he said innocently.

"Good boy."

"Can I have a name?" asked the bored-looking barista.

She threw Mairon a long-suffering glance before clearing her throat. "It's _Thuringwethil_ , t as in Tuesday, h as in happy, u as in Uranus, r as in run, i as in idiot, n as in nest, g as in gay-as-fuck, w as in wild, e as in erection, t as in Tuesday again, h as in happy again, i as in idiot again, and l as in lesbian."

The barista blinked.

Mairon sighed. "Just write _Thuri,"_ he murmured to the barista under his breath as his friend swept off to find a table. 

Not five minutes later, Lúthien arrived, a little out of breath. She swung her sheet of long, dark hair out of her face to peck her girlfriend on the cheek. "Sorry I'm late. Choir practice ran overtime," she explained, swinging into her seat.

"No problem," Thuringwethil assured her.

"Gothmog's not coming?" she asked, glancing around.

"Couldn't make it. Something about football practice."

"Got it." She didn't look particularly disappointed; Mairon knew that she always acted a little strange around their quarterback friend, although he couldn't think why. Come to think of it, Lúthien acted a little strange around _him_ , too.

Perhaps sensing the awkwardness, Thuringwethil said, "Did you hear? Manwë's getting married."

"I know!" Lúthien smiled. ""Varda told me yesterday. They're sweet together, aren't they?"

"I wasn't invited." Mairon propped his chin on one hand.

"Yeah, me neither." Thuringwethil snorted. "I don't think he likes us very much, but hey, who cares? He's kind of an asshole anyway. Always so uptight."

"Nearly as much as his brother," Mairon agreed, the corner of his mouth curling upwards. 

She frowned in confusion. "Manwë has a brother?"

A pause. Lúthien fidgeted. 

"No," he said slowly, shaking his head. "No, I—don't know why I said that."

It was like the words had slid from his tongue unbidden, a second voice in his head temporarily taking control. _Manwë's brother?_ he thought, and for a second there was word on the tip of his tongue, no, a _name_ — and a face bloomed in his mind, hazy and indistinct, scarred and framed by dark hair —

The man from his dreams.

The man with the black eyes.

Lúthien cleared her throat. "How's Curumo?"

He blinked, caught between being glad for an excuse to change the subject, and irritation that the name in his mind, teasing in its almost-presence, had vanished. "Oh, same as always. Which is to say, a pain in my ass."

The conversation dissolved back into gossip and laughter, the tension, the confusion melted away. But there was a tug on Mairon's heartstrings, an itch in the back of his mind.

He didn't scratch it. There was a part of him that was too afraid of what might come leaking out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Melkor yet, sorry.  
> Thoughts?


	3. Chapter 3

It began with dreams, flashes of memory. Between breaths, between heartbeats, in the twilight zone between sleeping and waking, Mairon would see him. The man with black eyes.

Sometimes he wore armor, or a strange crown with three glittering jewels set into it. Sometimes, leather gloves. Sometimes his face bore more scars than others. But he always wore black, and there was always that gleam in his eye—like a reflection of fire and ice and everything terrible and ancient and beautiful in the world. Like he was looking at somebody that embodied all these things.

It began with dreams.

Then — slowly, so slowly Mairon barely realized the difference between dream and reality — this man began to seep into real life.

An echo of his silhouette in a shadow.

A semblance of his face in the pattern of smeared dirt.

A hint of his smirk in the corner of Mairon's eye.

The barest flicker of him in the mirror, only to vanish the instant Mairon spun around. 

He wondered vaguely if he was being haunted. But no. This felt . . . not haunting, not malevolent. More like some sort of benevolent presence. Watching him. Guarding him — but no guardian angel. No sort of angel indeed. There was too much darkness weighing down the beauty of that gaze, too much power wrapped in the way he moved and spoke and felt.

He wondered if he was going mad.

He wondered if he _cared_. 

It began with dreams, and then — words.

Words, twining in his mind and heart, whispering through his veins as though tangling with the essence of what the ancient peoples might have called his _fëa_. Words hazy and indistinct, barely tangible, but if he strained, he could catch their edges —

_. . . my precious . . ._

_. . . so sorry, I didn't —_

_— nothing to forgive —_

_. . . I love you, too . . ._

_. . . it's all because of these damned Silmarils, you never would have —_

_. . . Little flame? I'm s. . ._

_. . . you don't need to be forgiven . . ._

Mairon bolted awake.

He spat a spit-soaked red curl from his mouth, grimacing, and turned over in bed. He'd fallen asleep, as he now did so often, to the half-spoken whispers that drifted in his mind, like fallen leaves floating in an autumn breeze. Like memories, like a faint reprieve of the boring sanity that plagued him.

In the dark he swore he heard voices, saw a face in the shadows, but —

And then he was dreaming again.

They should have been nightmares. _They should have been nightmares_ , but they weren't. He should have tasted terror in his mouth as he raised a hand — slim and ivory, adorned with rings he didn't remember owning — to the snout of a black-scaled dragon. He should have felt guilt course in his veins as he twisted a knife through the shoulder of a man — no, not a man, an _elf,_ just like the lost species they spoke of in history class — with flowing dark hair and chains around his wrists . . . he should have wept at the shock in the eyes of the man — was that Professor Aulë? — that stood before him with betrayal seething in his gaze . . . 

But he didn't, and he didn't, and he didn't.

The images were fractured, jumbled. Not true memories. More like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that had been scrambled up in a pile, with only a few connected here and there. Out of order, out of time. More like photos, like a slightest glimpse through a fogged window, than real life.

He tossed and turned, fitful, unable to understand.

They spoke in class, sometimes, of the possibility of something called _reincarnation_.

Not a proven phenomenon. Just a scientific theory . . . but a theory backed up by memories. People who'd spoken of past lives . . . 

Mairon had never believed in reincarnation.

Reincarnation, apparently, believed in him.

So the question was — who _was_ he? Who was the person inside of him, red-haired and cruel and lovely, desperate to claw his way out?

Maybe he'd never know. Maybe he was better off never knowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my lifeblood


	4. Chapter 4

"We," said Curumo firmly, "need to talk about your dreams."

Mairon glanced up through a haze of lost sleep. He took a long, deliberate sip of his coffee, determinedly not wincing as the heat rasped at his tongue. "I beg your pardon?"

"You dreams. Your weird-ass dreams about . . . I don't know, dismembering people, or whatever—"

" _Dismembering_ —hold on, I _never_ said that."

"—and having sex with some black-eyed guy who you won't stop waxing poetic about," Curumo plowed on, ignoring him.

"Okay, I _definitely_ never said that."

"You implied it."

"I did not!" he snapped.

"You _did_!"

"I did n—hey, maybe we need to talk about _you._ Specifically, your listening and analyzation skills. Or lack thereof."

Curumo crossed his arms and gave him a Look(TM). Sighing, Mairon set down his coffee, eyes glued to the curls of steam that drifted above it in lazy spirals.

"Look, they're just dreams. Granted, they _are_ weird, but . . ." 

"But what?" Curumo lifted his brows, which irked Mairon a little more than he cared to admit (that was _his_ signature gesture.) "I'm not an expert, but I don't think normal people dream about dismembering other people."

"Why do you keep saying dismembering? I didn't even dream that!"

"My point is," Curumo cut him off loudly, "maybe you want to . . . I don't know. Talk to somebody."

He drew himself up to his full height, barely an inch shorter than Curumo, but respectable enough. "I," he said loftily, "do not need to _talk_ to anybody, and certainly not because of _dreams_."

"Okay, man." Curumo shook out his sheet of pale hair, letting strands of it fall over his face, but Mairon still caught the skepticism etched across his features. "I just think you should get some help, maybe see what's wrong—"

Barely aware of his own actions, Mairon rose to his feet in a fluid motion, slammed one hand against the table. His coffee cup shattered, spilling steaming brown liquid and shards of black across the table. 

"Nothing _._ " He hissed out the word through a curled lip, holding Curumo's glacier-blue gaze. "Is. _Wrong._ With. Me."

The words. . . the words left his mouth as though somebody else had spoken them. And maybe somebody had. He struggled to repress it, repress the voice screaming within him to _let me out, let me out you human_ fool _,_ but he'd already spoken and sharp pain cleaved through his forehead as a trickle of memory rose to the surface of his mind.

A forge.

Red hair, slicked with sweat, falling from where he'd braided it back with a leather strap.

Clenched fists, red with heat and anger, as he stared down a man — _Aulë_ — in deep red robes. 

_Nothing is wrong with me!_

He snapped back to the present, blinking.

Curumo raised his hands as though in surrender, eyes wide. "Okay. Okay. Chill, man. I'm sorry."

". . . right. Me too." Mairon blew out a breath. He dropped his head into his hands, almost savoring the sharp, hot bite of spilled coffee against his cheek. "Bad day."

"Yeah." Curumo sighed. "Yeah, I get it." The sound of chair legs scraping as he, too, stood. "Listen, you want a little space? I'll go . . . get dinner or something."

When Mairon looked up, he was alone.

Alone, but not really.

_Let me out._

That voice. His own voice, and yet now his own at all. Echoing in his mind, ricocheting off the insides of his skull in a whispering hiss. Fire and whispers, breath and flame. The scratch of smoke against a raw throat. 

"No," he whispered aloud, his voice shaking. 

_I am you. You are me. Let me out, and we can bring him back._

"Who?" he breathed, although he already knew. " _Who_?"

And at last came the name, spoken in his own voice. He understood the weight of it, the power, the centuries of fear that dripped from its syllables, but felt none of it himself. Only a — a strange _thrill_ , an echo of his past self's bizarre ecstasy at the sound of that name —

A thrill of flame, shivering up his spine. 

A shiver of a thousand emotions that had no business being anywhere within a one-mile radius of each other, mixed up and shooting through his blood all at once —

— _painragefearsorrowguiltdesiresilencelove —_

He gasped and clutched at his heart, the name a stab to his chest, needle-sharp and fierce.

" _Melkor_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while don't kill me

**Author's Note:**

> Will be continued.


End file.
